Billy Porter Speaks Up For Black LGBTQ+ Community In Passionate Instagram Video

Billy Porter is raising his voice high in the Black Lives Matter movement, and is also calling them out for lack of support for Black LGBTQ lives.

“LGBTQ+ black folks are black people, too!” the Pose star shared in his new Instagram. “Our lives matter, too! So this is my response to those of y’all who don’t understand that: F— you! And, yes, I am cussing. It’s time for cussing.”

Billy referenced Iyanna Dior, a black trans woman who was attacked by a group of cisgender men while a group of black cisgender people did nothing.

“My basic human rights have been up for legislation every single day that I have had breath in my body from all sides—and by that I mean that the black community’s relationship with the LGBTQ+ community is appalling at best and eerily similar to that of white supremacists versus black folk,” Billy said. “Hear me, black people, and hear me well. I’m calling you out right here and right now. You cannot expect our demands of equality to be met with any real legislative policy and change when y’all turn around and inflict the same kind of hate and oppression on us.”

He went on, “The tragic reality here is that black trans, as well as gender non-conforming, women and men are being killed in the United States by cis black men to such a degree that it is nearly the worst emergency for trans women on the planet.”

“To all my homophobic and transphobic brothers and sisters, get your f—ing houses in order.”

Billy added that “as Black people, we risk our lives every time we leave our homes. As queer people of color that risk is doubled. We move about our days sucking it up, hiding our pain and terror from the world, trying to make ourselves small, so white people and straight people feel comfortable.”

“Our parents try to prepare us for the realities of this world: the fact that the playing field is not leveled, the laws that protect white people do not do the same for us, and that we have to be at least 10 times better at anything we choose to do in life to simply get in the rooms where things happen.”

Watch his video below and check out a full list of resources on how you can contribute and support BLM here!